


Rattle

by drpinkky



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-02 02:36:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drpinkky/pseuds/drpinkky
Summary: I spent an hour in my car untangling damp ratchet straps and doing some thinking. anywho here we go again!





	Rattle

There’s a new rattle in the taxi. 

From years of sharing the taxi with Jacques, Kit knew every single sound the taxi made. Every squeak, squeal, and sigh. It’s always had a few rattles, unsurprising with a car of its age. But this one is new. Different from the sound of books sliding in the back seat. Different from the papers crunching under the front seats. It’s a rattle. According to experience, rattles have always meant bad. In any machine, rattles mean bad. Even if it’s only coming from the trunk.

It only happens when she’s driving. It’s louder as she goes faster.

Jacques wouldn’t have let this happen.

Then again, maybe Jacques would never have found out about it. He always drove so _safely_.

He always brought up how _safely_ he drove.

Like it would save his life someday.

Like all of his problems would happen within five feet of the taxi.

A particularly insistent rattle brings Kit back to the present. Fortunately, the long, empty stretches of highway between the Caligari Carnival and the Mortmain Mountains provide plenty of space to pull off and check the car.

“Alright,” Kit sighs as she sets the parking brake. “Let’s get you back to good health.”

Kit considered the state of the taxi as she walked to the trunk. A fine coating of dust was only to be expected from driving in the Hinterlands, but a new ding on the rear fender caught her eye. She traces the border of the mark with her index finger. The tiniest fleck of paint had fallen away from the center of the shallow dent.

From the short exchange they shared, Olivia had seemed like a kind of person who would have mentioned a problem with the car if she had noticed one. She seemed like the kind of person Jacques would have liked.

Was it just that she was a _safe _driver?

Is that why she hadn’t noticed?

Had Jacques managed to mar the car? Why didn’t he fix it?

Kit opens the trunk and examines its contents.

When Olivia handed over the keys, Kit slung her bag in the trunk without looking and raced to the Heimlich Hospital.

That was her mistake. But at least she’s got answers about the rattle.

Nothing about the dent.

Her bag had disturbed a tangle of ratchet straps and bungee cords, the ones Jacques purchased once he earned his license.

He thought he’d use them as seatbelts.

“You know how these old cars are,” he said. “Made before those safety laws.”

Now, these straps couldn’t help anyone. The knotted mass almost wriggles as she goes to move it. Like reaching into a pit of snakes, the yellows and reds and oranges warning to keep well back. They’d do anything to stay right there and keep up their clinking against the monkey wrench and the carjack.

Once she gathers them all, she moves them to the back seat. At least there, they’d have nothing to hit except each other.

She would have liked to untangle them. One could never tell when a rope might come in handy, say, for scaling a sheer cliff face or for tying up villains, but the clock stops for no one.

The children were not yet safe. The Sugar Bowl was not yet safe. The straps could wait. She did not have to be the one to fix them.

**Author's Note:**

> Deleted scene: Kit has Mr Poe untangle the straps
> 
> My twitter and tumblr: drpinkky  
Asoue tumblr: lesbianscieszka


End file.
